Oblivio Nex

Chapter 12

Draco was brought out of his memories by a slightly muffled, worried voice asking if he was okay. Draco expelled his breath in a short, bitter laugh. Everything was so very far from okay. He screwed his eyes closed tightly as he shifted more weight onto the bedroom door behind him, which he was still leaning on.

How could he have been so stupid?

As he heard a tentative knock, Draco quickly walked over to the bathroom and locked himself in, backing away from the door warily. Draco sighed as he looked around the small bathroom and, as it seemed he was going to have to hide in there for the rest of the night, decided to wash away Lucius's harsh punishment. He couldn't face the dark-haired Gryffindor at the moment.

He shed his clothes briskly, ignoring the blotches of purpling skin from his magic ridden torture. Draco closed his eyes and tried to slow his rapid breathing – not now, not yet – he couldn't do that yet. Potter was probably outside the door listening and would hear.

Draco stepped underneath the spelled shower that began to fall as soon as he walked into the appointed area, and lifted his face to the warm water, flinching a little as the sharp throbbing in his body increased at the small pressure. His breathing was coming faster now and it hitched while he fought for control.

Don't break down; don't break; don't…

The boy's fists clenched tighter and tighter until he could no longer hold back the soft desolate cry that broke free from his lips. That small cry was his undoing; the naked form of Draco Malfoy dropped to the floor in a hopeless moment of surrender to his unyielding emotions, unable to stop the flood of feelings that washed away his prized Malfoy restraint.

It was hopeless, he was back in the same situation he'd first taken Oblivio Nex to escape from.

Bloody Potter with his Gryffindor compassion! If Draco had seen Harry half way to suicide he wouldn't have barged in and– but there was the problem, wasn't it?

Draco shook his head, trying to clear his tear filled vision.

He, Draco, would not have allowed Harry to finish drinking a potion designed to kill, just as Harry hadn't allowed Draco to finish drinking Oblivio Nex. And there was the paradox in this situation; he couldn't kill Harry Potter, his enemy of six years. The reason? Draco had unwisely formed a rather strong attachment to the boy.

It seemed to have come from nowhere, yet Draco still knew exactly what had happened. He blamed the other Slytherins; if they had been a little less disgraceful to be around, then perhaps he would have carried on glaring at the Gryffindor trio instead of starting to watch them, one of them in particular.

He'd noticed the differences between them before of course, and they were not even subtle differences. Harry and the Gryffindors, and Draco and the Slytherins. The opposition was almost too perfect in its black and white storybook ideal - the Good and the Bad. Draco sighed. If it were only that simple, if only black and white didn't sometimes blend…

Draco had soon wearied of his House, of the constant need to watch your own back due to the fact that if you didn't, it was very likely someone was about to plunge a knife into it. It all felt like being at home, the constant surveillance of his own actions as well as everyone else's, to do what was accepted, to watch if anyone else did the wrong thing so it could be pointed out and discussed with a variety of sneering comments.

Draco loathed it. He felt like he was some kind of trained animal, performing for his masters, and he was all too familiar with that feeling of imprisonment. For as long as Draco could remember he had felt nothing that even hinted at freedom, unless you counted those wonderful moments of flying.

Although Draco understood his housemates perfectly well, it didn't stop him from despising them, their fawning mannerisms, and their vicious, petty vengeances. He watched the way they were, how they watched each other, how they all competed for positions of 'power' and it made him feel sick.

He felt as if he was being drowned in people who reflected a Dark world where there was no compassion, no hope and certainly no love, and despite his father's lessons and stern lectures on what it was to be a Malfoy he still hungered for something more than this. He saw in his Housemates' actions, in his father's sneering face something he never wanted to see: himself.

This doubt of the people around him had grown since second year, and every time he returned to Hogwarts it got stronger. He realised that one of the reasons for this was because the awfulness of his companions became more pronounced when he had something to compare it to, but this comparison unfortunately turned out to be the one he hated most, the boy who'd rejected him – Harry Potter. The other boy challenged Draco in a way he'd never been challenged; Harry was his opposite, who was against everything he'd been brought up in, brought up to be, and the Slytherin found himself attracted to that.

When he had admitted to himself that he might actually have fallen in love with Harry Potter, the young Malfoy had become desperate to rid himself of the ridiculous emotion. After trying many spells, curses and potions on himself Draco had given up and reluctantly resigned himself to his fate.

He had never acted on his desire and had instead maintained the usual behaviour towards everyone including his Gryffindor crush, but Draco's days became more and more painful to live through due to the green-eyed boy's ever increasing hatred towards his provoker.

Yet what could Draco have done? Any deviation in his behaviour would have caused a stir among his own House that might have gotten him killed – Slytherins could be incredibly twitchy when it came to change, and if he'd gone ahead and stopped his usual taunts towards Harry and his friends, who knows what the consequences would have been?

And so Draco was trapped in a position that had once pleased him; he was Harry's tormenter and the boy's reminder of the Dark – the one thing that filled the Gryffindor with such loathing - and unless he wished his own demise Draco was forced to play out the role that had been given him.

That had been going on for a year now.

Then, about a month ago, Draco had received the usual encoded letter from his father. However, this time the instructions to go on 'preparing Slytherin' and to carry on 'training for destiny' were not included. Instead there was just one statement.

'You are to be initiated; the task is to exterminate Potter – do not fail.'

Draco, as might be imagined, did not take this too well.

At first he thought his father had somehow found out about his unwavering affection for Harry, but promptly banished that paranoid thought as he recollected that he'd told no one, betrayed nothing in his actions, and due to his own father's insistence that he was trained in the art of Occlumency even his own thoughts could not have betrayed him; therefore, no one could have found out. Despite this, Draco knew that whether the Dark side thought him loyal or not had no real import on his situation. He still had the same problem: kill or be killed.

Draco, exhausted mentally and physically due to the turmoil that his unlooked-for love had caused him, finally snapped one day after a particularly nasty fight with the Weasel.

The redhead had, yet again, been accusing Draco of practising Dark Magic and with Harry supporting his friend as viciously as ever, Draco had finally had enough. Harry's scowling eyes only punctuated the constant accusations he threw at Draco about practising what Draco had for years thought of as filthy magic.

The resolute opinion of Harry's that he was a Dark Wizard had at long last convinced Draco that there was no other way out of this. He would have no help if he turned to the Light about his mission of assassination; people's prejudices concerning him would be too much. His hopes of Harry eventually seeing the truth of who Draco Malfoy really was turned to ashes as he finally realised that the familiar glare of hatred would never turn into some softer emotion.

It had been after this encounter that Draco had stormed down the corridor and retrieved the vial he kept in his room, and with his face set in a determined expression, he had strode up to Myrtle's toilets, one place he knew no one ever went.

He'd taken the potion from Lucius's stores in the Manor years ago, he knew exactly what Oblivio Nex would do and he intended to go through with it. He would end this insufferable existence, and if he died in a Death Eater fashion then so much the better – let the fools believe whatever they would, Draco knew that they wouldn't think otherwise anyway.

And so, an almost manic light in his silver eyes, he had tentatively drank a little of the potion, almost not fully comprehending what he was doing when he tasted it, as if it were wine. It certainly seemed to feel like wine, as he was almost immediately affected when the burning liquid coursed into his bloodstream.

The room started to spin as the potion took effect and when Draco fell rather gracelessly to the floor with a loud 'oomf!' he thought he should probably drink the rest before he passed out and became unable to finish what he'd started.

He was about to do just that when he had looked up disbelievingly at the bastard who had started this mess.

"Bugger off, Potter."

It was his fault after all, and although the moronic Gryffindor was everything he'dcome to want, Draco found that he could still hate Potter for how he'd put him in this complicated position; Draco found a satisfaction in that bittersweet tangle of emotions, one that he hardly knew how to explain. Perhaps because it gave him some small comfort to know that he'd not gone and got infected with a love curse or something equally as horrible, and that the emotion that he was feeling for the dark haired boy was all too real.

Draco hiccupped a sob as he recalled what had then occurred; Potter had grabbed the potion-filled vial from him and drank it. The boy must have known the potion was designed to kill Draco, and yet he had actually drunk it.

As the slender boy continued to sob under the falling water in the bathroom, he angrily clenched his fists, wondering why Harry hadn't allow him his escape, why the boy had deemed it necessary to save him – had he just been filling up his hero quota for the day, or did he too have a death wish?

Draco miserably put his head in his wet hands, soaked strands of blonde hair falling over his face. What was he going to do? He'd taken Oblivio Nex so he wouldn't be the one to kill Harry, and so that the Dark side wouldn't get the satisfaction of killing their 'traitor,' as he would no doubt have been deemed if he refused the task. Yet his suicide attempt had failed rather spectacularly and now he'd found he'd actually entered into a relationship with the one boy he'd meant to die for. Now he would only end up causing Harry more pain.

The memories of the last few weeks were as strong as his old ones and Draco held on to them tightly; they had been the best weeks of his life. No expectations, no criticism, no decisions for Light or Dark - just Harry. That had been the most that he could have asked for, and despite Draco's knowledge that Harry would no doubt be completely disgusted when he finally remembered his real life, Draco couldn't help but feel happy with the short time they'd had. Yet he still shuddered at what might have happened had Lucius not forcibly recalled his memories. He would have no doubt refused the antidote and Harry would have taken it and remembered everything, spurning Draco with no answer as to why, ending with Draco being scorned by both his surely former boyfriend and everyone else in the school.

Yet, Lucius's antidote had been not without price. Draco looked down his body and at the new marks he'd acquired; his father rarely gave him anything that was without a price. Yet, what had Lucius been thinking of, to attack him right here in Hogwarts? Perhaps the four month imprisonment in Azkaban had affected the wizard more than he'd realised.

Draco had been happy to have his father back, at first, but then Lucius had started to act differently, and over Christmas break Draco had discovered his father's new, almost thirsty enthusiasm to use the Dark curses. This had been something that had cemented the young Malfoy's distaste of the addictive magic, as well as allowing him to finally give into his growing uncertainty with regards to Lucius, as his childhood admiration and love began dimming when he saw what his father had become upon the return of the Dark Lord. The boy had soon begun to wish that Fudge hadn't been so easily swayed by Malfoy money. If the minister had any kind of sense Lucius would still be locked up and unable to give into such impulsive acts of madness.

Draco's eyes narrowed as he suddenly realised something. His soft cries stopped completely, the only expression of his exhausted pain remaining the few tears that seemed unable to halt their path down his cheeks.

The senior Malfoy's punishment just a few hours earlier had only confirmed his assumptions. Lucius shouldn't have been able to get away with what he'd just done. Not here, not Hogwarts. Draco's naive and memory-free self had been right to insist that he should have been safe in a castle that was protected by Dumbledore. It seemed the Light side had already judged Draco and had found him wanting. The only two explanations of how Lucius had managed to use such Dark magic was that either Dumbledore didn't feel Draco to be worth saving, or that Lucius's Dark shields were too strong, the latter of which Draco seriously doubted.

Draco sighed as he rested his head lightly on his knees and he wiped away the last few errant tears, frowning slightly at how he had broken down - Malfoys didn't cry. Yet something in him felt have changed, he was tired of this mask, of this pretence. He was weary of the harsh coldness he was expected to adopt to fit in with the rest of the Malfoys and most of his Slytherin companions. Excepting the recent encounter with Lucius, he hadn't cried since he was a child and throughout his painful sobs he'd only wanted one thing: Harry. The boy had shown him more care and affection than Draco had thought was possible to receive and he felt almost jealous that he'd had this for weeks not knowing what exactly it was he had.

Harry had unintentionally opened his heart and Draco was even more lost for the boy having done so. Draco hadn't believed Harry could ever like him, but the Harry he'd spent these past few weeks with had shown him a dreadfully amazing example of what Draco's life could have been, a life he couldn't have. Draco felt sick as he recalled the conversations, the heated glances, the small touches, the quick affectionate kisses, the…

Draco took a shuddering breath and calmed himself, hardening his heart against the one thing that seemed to weaken him. He couldn't think of Potter like that anymore, he'd had his time and now he would go on. A plan was slowly forming in his mind, one that would make sure he did as his father asked - he would not fail again.

-

To be continued…